Improve Your Weak Opening

More on Starting a Novel
Reading a wide variety of mss, I find this to be one of the weakest areas: openings. Striking just the right note is difficult. What do you include just as the curtain opens on your novel?
Typical advice:

Start with something exciting.
Grab the reader by the throat and never let them go
Jump right [...]

Orient Your Readers

Sometimes when I read the opening of a manuscript, I’m totally confused.
Trying too hard to grab the reader. These openings start with something startling. OK. Nothing wrong with that, except

Your Novel’s Welcome Mat: Intriguing Titles

Welcome Mat: Your Novel’s Title
When you are brainstorming titles, think of it as a welcome mat. A title’s job is to bring readers into your novel, story, or picture book. This is why the title is often changed by

Do you get MAD at Editors? I Do

Have Your Pity Party: But Then Get to Work
When you get the letter from an editor about a revision, what do you do?
Frankly, I get mad. How dare that misguided editor

8 Ways to Enrich Your Character

Character Revision: 8 Ways to Jumpstart a Make Over
You have a first draft, but you realize that your character needs work. How do you retrofit a character when you revise?
I don’t think of a personality transplant. Instead, I try to add to and enrich a character. Here are 8 suggestions on how to revise your [...]

Eavesdropping: Real Dialogue

Notes from the Field
If you’re revising a novel or picture book, one step is to look at the dialogue of your characters and sharpen it. Tom Chiarella, in his book,Writing Dialogue suggests recording dialogue — yes, you get to EavesDrop! — around you for a day. At least for a couple hours. [...]

3 Ways to Show, Don’t Tell

Classic advice to beginning fiction writers: Show, Don’t Tell. I taught several sessions to teachers last week and they all nodded. Great advice. But how do you DO that in practical terms? How do you teach students to Show, Don’t Tell?
Show, Don’t Tell: Why?
In the old days of storytelling, it was fine to just say [...]

Wedding

My daughter is getting married next week, so I’ll be scarce for the next week or so. Hope your writing is going well – send me your good news! I love to hear it.

Drastic Revision in Search of Voice

When you revise your novel or story do you look at what you wrote before or start totally from scratch?
Revise Previous Text
Usually, I’ll work with the text that I already have written. The idea here is that I’m close, but it isn’t quite there yet. In this case, I’m refining the text and story as [...]

New Grandchild

This is my grand-daughter. I’ve gone to welcome her baby brother into the world. Back in a week or so!